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PRINCIPLES, ACTS, AND UTTERANCES 
OF JOHN C. CALHOUN, PROMOTIVE OF 
THE TRUE UNION OF THE ST^^^iJkfn 




)c 'r 



Ifr 



By 

The Hon. J, L. M. CURRY, LL.D. 

Washington, D. C. 



CHICAGO 

^be "Glnivereits of Gbicago press 

1898 



El 3^0 



Reprinted from the " University Record/' of the University 
of Chicago, Vol. Ill, Nos. 16, 17, and 18 



PRINCIPLES, UTTERANCES, AND ACTS OF 
JOHN C. CALHOUN, PROMOTIVE OF THE 
TRUE UNION OF THE STATES.* 



BY THE HON. J. L. M. CURRY, LL.D., 
Washington. D. C. 



I. 

Of all days, apart from those commemorative of 
events connected with our Christian religion, the 
Fourth of July is most significant. One English writer 
calls it a red-letter day for Englishmen as well as 
for Americans. Morley speaks of our revolutionary 
attitude of 1776 as a necessary step in the development 
of British liberty. It is epochal in the history of human 
freedom, and, under present circumstances,"!" it is pecu- 
liarly fit to revive the celebration with all its inspiring 
memories. North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachu- 
setts may be chiefly entitled to the honor of its origi- 
nation, of conducting "the mighty preliminary argu- 
ment of the Revolution," but all the thirteen states 
concurred in the Declaration, which was not a legis- 
lative act. conferring power, making a government, 
creating the Union, but it was a pivotal event, and, as 
a result of renunciation of allegiance to Great Britain, 
every colony became free, sovereign and independent 
possessing, not what the government of Great Britain 
may have possessed, but each one, every and all the 
rights pertaining to sovereignty. As lately belligerent 
sections are now blended in national patriotism, in 
courage, in readiness to make all needful sacrifices for 

*.\n address delivered before the University of Chicago on 
Independence Day, July 4, 1898. 

t See Atlantic Monthly, July 18. 1898, for an interesting discus- 
sion of the advantage to English liberty from the sever- 
ance. 



the glory of a common flag, it is most appropriate and 
important to cement these fresh ties into enduring 
brotherhood and go back to first principles, and study 
with unprejudiced and receptive diligence what 
brought the colonies into Federal Union, and what 
will make the alliance a perpetual blessing. Cruelest 
public opinion has placed under ban some of these 
principles and their advocates, and there was never a 
stronger obligation on universities to teach the truths 
of republican liberty or "the art of applying them" 
to practical government. Conscious that I undertake 
a difficult task, but emboldened by the assurance of 
President Harper that this university is for the investi- 
gation of truth and challenges the boldest discussion, 
I set myself to the task of demonstrating that John 
C. Calhoun, in conviction, creed and conduct, was a 
true and devoted friend of the Union of our fathers, 
and that his policy and principles, adopted in public 
opinion and applied in practice, in executive, legisla- 
tive, and judicial departments of the government, 
would be the best guarantee of constitutional liberty, 
of the permanence of our complex and well-guarded 
systems, and of the peace and happiness of the people. 
His political course, instead of being hostile to the 
Union, was the best auxiliary and surest promoter of 
its original end and purpose, and its integrity was the 
paramount object of his ambition and efforts. 

II. 

Let us ascertain the meaning of terms. A clear 
definition will rid discussion of much that is irrele- 
vant and confusing. Some make the Union a fetish, 
an idol, andpieans to its glory, cries of "Union, Union, 
the glorious Union," are substitutes for arguments 
and facts, and become spells of the enchantress to 
exorcise demons. Some habitually speak of it as a 
personality, or, in itself, a self -existing government, 
make a profession of attachment the shibboleth for 
determining loyalty and a cover or excuse for any 
injustice or wrong. It has elicited rhetoric and poetry 

2 



and some of the most eloquent periods in the English 
language, but we have need to go beneath words, how- 
ever beautiful and thrilling, remembering that rhet- 
oric and history are two very different things, and 
that "gush sometimes verges dangerously on false- 
hood." The Union is a creation, a result. We know 
the creators. We can tix the day of its coming 
into existence. The ratification of the Constitu- 
tion by the States made it, and prior to 1789 it 
was only a dream, an expectation, a hope. To predi- 
cate Union, with present meaning, on the condition of 
things antecedent to that year, is a gross historical 
solecism. We bless God for the Constitutional Union. 
We recognize it as full of dignity, honor, and inspira- 
tion, as the source of incalculable blessings, and we 
adopt, as our creed, the striking phrase of Chief 
Justice Chase, "an indissoluble union of indestructi- 
ble states." Let us cherish a reverential attachment 
to our written Constitution as the palladium of Ameri- 
can Uberty, the truest security of the Union, the only 
solid basis for the public liberties, the substantial 
prosperity, and the permanence of our representative 
Federal Republic. 

Let us look at the Union in the light of historical 
truth. Apart from the Constitution it is a myth, an 
unembodied abstraction. The Union is a federation 
of states, compacted, vivified, held together, having its 
being, its authority, solely in the breath of the Consti- 
tution. Destroy the Constitution and the Union per- 
ishes instantaneously, without heir or descendant. It 
is the grossest error to liken it to governments which 
derive their power from tradition, from usage, from 
presumption. The Union has no original, inherent 
powers, none by virtue of the fact that it is a govern- 
ment. Every power, every function, is derivative. * 



*In tho case of Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee (1 Wheaton, 326), 
Chief Justice Marshall laid down the rule as follows: 
"The Government of the United States can claim no 
powers which are not granted to it by the Constitution ; 
and the powers actually Rxanted must be siich as^are 
expressly given, or given by necessary implication." 



What the states did not grant nor surrender, the gen- 
eral government, the Union, does not possess, cannot 
usurp. Before powers were " delegated," there were 
no powers in the United States ; in fact, no United 
States existed. 

There is so much misapprehension on this subject 
that I must crave indulgence for expansion. The 
facts are few and not difficult of ascertainment if 
Bought and considered witliout prejudgment. The 
Union is the consequence of a political partnership, 
the terms and conditions of which are embodied in 
the Constitution. As a government it is not absolute, 
nor in all matters supreme, but is one of well-defined 
grants, of carefully imposed limitations and restric- 
tions. When a question arises, a measure is proposed, 
a course of action is suggested, the reference is to a 
written instrument, and not to prescription or scat- 
tered statutes which have not been classified into a 
coherent whole. One need not suppose nor fear that 
a great residuary mass of power and obligations is 
non-existent or floating in limbo. If not granted and 
recorded in the Constitution, nor prohibited to the 
states, they are in the states, or the people of the 
states, most precautiously preserved. The Union is 
partial. For some civil purposes it exists; for some, 
it does not. For some purposes, as war, treaties, rela- 
tions with foreign powers, imposts, naturalization, 
coinage, copyrights, post office, etc. — purposes great 
in importance, unlimited in degree, but very limited 
in number — there can be no question as to its su- 
premacy, its plenary powers, its sole and undivided 
responsibility. That laws made in jiursuance oi the 
Constitution are the supreme laws of the land, no- 
body questions. The contention begins back of this. 
Who is the final arbiter to determine what laws are in 
pursuance of the Constitution ? Within the limits of 
the granted powers the states are united ; without 
those limits, as in matters of religion, bearing arms, 
right to a speedy public trial, and as to all powers 
not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by 

4 



it to the states, the states are as disunited, as separate 
from the central government, as that government is 
from Great Britain, and these great rights are left for 
recognition, protection and security to the states 
which have sole and exclusive jurisdiction over them. 
In these reserved powers are embraced the protection 
and security of life, liberty and property, the unre- 
stricted power to determine what these rights are, 
their extent and limit, and all the processes of law for 
their vindication; also, all jurisdiction over the con- 
duct of men, the conservation of morals, the preserva- 
tion of the public health, and the entire power over 
all contracts, all property situated within the borders 
of the state, over schools, colleges, and universities, 
over marriage, over the relative rights, duties, and 
powers of husband and wife, parent and child, teacher 
and pupil, employer and employed. The state author- 
ity meets the child at his birth, attends him through 
infancy, manhood and old age, and, through the free 
exercise of his religious belief, secures an opportunity 
to gain a blissful hereafter.* 



III. 

How was this Union, or the Federal Government, 
made ? Prior to the Revolution the states formed dis- 
tinct colonies, as distinct, said Dr. Small, as though 
created by different sovereignties, and in their sepa- 
rate colonial assemblies the grievances which exas- 
perated the people were discussed, and the steps 



*In the case of Collector vs. Day (11 Wallace) the Federal 
court undertook to dcfiDe the relative rights of States and 
of the Federal Government. The Court said : "Tlie Gen- 
eral Government and the States, although both exist 
within the same territorial limits, are separate and dis- 
tinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently 
of each otiior within their respective spheres. The former 
within its appropriate sphere is supreme, but the Stati-s 
within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the 
language of the tenth amendment, 'reserved,' are as inde- 
pendent of the General Government as that Government, 
within its sphere, is independent of the States .... In 
respect to the reserved powers the State is as sovereign and 
independent as the General Government." 



looking to resistance and reparation were adopted.* 
These distinct colonies were politically united only 
through the British Crown, the inhabitants being 
amenable to British law, with rights of common citi- 
zenship in any part of the British realm, and. except 
as to geographical proximity, were as separate as 
Canada and New South Wales. In all movements 
against the encroachments of the mother country they 
acted as distinct political communities, and not as 
individuals, nor as an aggregate people. In the Dec- 
laration of Independence they proclaimed themselves 
free and independent states, and the treaty of peace, 
by name and enumeration, recognized them as such. 
" In that character they formed the old confederation, 
and when it was proposed to supersede the articles of 
the confederation by the present Constitution, they 
met in convention as states, acted and voted as 
states, and the Constitution, when formed, was 
submitted for ratification to the people of the 
several states. It was ratified by them as states, 
each state for itself ; each by its ratification 
binding its own citizens ; the parts thus sepa- 
rately binding themselves, and not the whole the 
parts." These indisputable facts show that the Con- 
stitution and the resulting Union are the work of the 
people of the states, acting as separate political com- 
munities. Their power created it, clothed it with 
authority, and the Union, of which the Constitution 
is the bond, was the union of states and not of indi- 
viduals. The people of the United States, as individ- 
uals or in the aggregate, never performed a single act 
in connection with the making or the ratification of 
the Constitution, and, from that day to this, have 
never performed an act as a nation or as one 
people. This notion of a universal democracy, of the 
people, collectively, acting as a unit, apart from or- 
derly, legal procedure, prescribed antecedent forms, 



*Soo Atlantic Monthly. July 189?, for a discussion of the 
salutary influonceof colonial depcudence for the first cen- 
tury and a half. 



or otherwiBe than through state organisms, is mod- 
ern, is Dorrism, is mobocracy. The Constitution, as 
the written fundamental law, is such because adopted 
by the concurrent ratification of conventions of the 
preexisting states. Each state had antecedently 
a written constitution of its own establishment, 
'• an efficient government of its own," says Cabot 
Lodge, and the effect of the new Constitution was 
to make a division of power between the admitted 
sovereignty of the states and the authority of the 
new Federal Government. Mr. Jefferson said, 
the relations of the states and the Federal Govern- 
ment were not correctly understood by foreigners. 
"They suppose the former are subordinate to the 
latter. This is not the case. They are coordinate de- 
partments of one simple and integral whole." The 
Federal Constitution is not the whole of government ; 
it is only a fragment, incomplete and unintelligible, 
taken alone. " The Constitution of the United States, 
with the government it created, is truly and strictly the 
constitution of each state, as much so as its own par- 
ticular constitution and government, ratified by the 
same authority, in the same mode, and having, as far 
as its citizens are concerned, its powers and obliga- 
tions from the same source." The constitutions of 
the several states are an indispensable complement of 
the Federal Constitution. The Federal Constitution 
and state constitutions are complements, the one of 
the other, and, within the limits and jurisdiction of 
the states, both are the constitution of the states. A 
government with no other powers than those granted 
in the Federal Constitution would be an abortion ; a 
government, considered as a whole, with no other pow- 
ers than those reserved by the states, would be power- 
less outside its own territorial domain and wholly 
inefficient in many important respects within. That 
the Federal Government is absolute, and has unlim- 
ited scope of action, is a political monstrosity, dia- 
metrically in contravention with the wisdom and 
purposes of its founders. The convention of 1787 and 

7 



the Constitution had a double object in view — first, 
to create a common government, a national govern- 
ment, showing to foreign countries a united people 
with ample powers of self-government and self- 
protection, and, secondly, at the same time, to main- 
tain the independence of the separate states which, 
through the Federal organization, had endowed 
the Federal Government with powers deducted 
from the sovereignty of the states. In the process 
of the formation of the Federal Government there 
was no arrogated superiority, no assumed mastery, 
of the states, nor any distrust of their faith or 
ability. The states, by an unusual act of self-abnega- 
tion, created a superior authority for defined purposes, 
but they still lived their own separate life, with vast 
and beneficial powers in their own hands, correlated 
with the federal powers they had surrendered. State 
rights are not abstract nor indeterminate rights; they 
are actively practical, essential to liberty and good 
government, and comprise great muniments of free- 
dom. The refusal to concede many rights, the adop- 
tion of twelve amendments out of the 124 pro- 
posed by the states at the time of their ratification, 
were to limit the Federal Government in its possible 
powers and render it incompetent to usurp what the 
states had reserved for their own exclusive control and 
protection. From this history of the adoption of the 
Constitution and these early amendments, the infer- 
ence is irresistible that the purpose was to form a 
general government of limited powers and to preserve 
and guarantee the equality and the reserved rights of 
the separate states. The contention of some that the 
states by accepting the Constitution fused themselves 
thereby into a nation, is a wholly illogical inference, 
contrary to facts, and not deduciblefrom the premises, 
even if no amendments in restraint of federal power, 
or to supply defects of the original instrument, had 
been adopted. With the Tenth Amendment such a 
theory is absolutely irreconcilable. The logical effect 
of the Constitution was that the states should retain 

8 



their undelef,svted powers, but, out of abundant caution 
and jealousy of the central government, it was deemed 
wise to have a specific amendment to that effect. 
Massachusetts proposed it ; New Hampshire. Virginia, 
North Carolina, and South Carolina concurred, and 
Madison included it in his scries of amendments pro- 
posed to the First Congress. The language, " to the 
states respectively or to the people," is the demonstra- 
tion that the reservation was to the several states and 
to the people in their separate character, and not to 
the whole as only one people or nation. That the 
powers of government are trust powers, delegated, 
not absolutely transferred, could not be more clearly 
and explicitly stated than has been done in that article. 

IV. 

It cannot now be difficult to decide who have been, 
and are, the truest friends, the real preservers, of the 
Union. Obviously and necessarily those who con- 
serve the true spirit and end of the Union and of the 
instrument which made it. The action of the govern- 
ment or of any of its departments, denying the legiti- 
mate supremacy of the states as the constitution-mak- 
ing power, is a rebellion of the creature against the 
creator, a profane denial of the source of the life and 
being of the Congress and the other departments. 
The fathers were never guilty of the folly and mad- 
ness of intrusting absolutism over the property, lives, 
and liberties of the people to irresponsible power. 
They had a vigilant care over popular liberty, the dig- 
nity, equality, and rights of the states, and with pro- 
phetic prevision were jealous of centralism. The true 
friend of them and of their work is he who regards 
with just apprehension and resists with vigor a sub- 
version of the relation of the Federal Government to 
the states, and all attempts, direct or furtive, to sub- 
stitute consolidation in lieu of the federative plan 
which they established. The Union being an instru- 
mentality to accomplish certain specified ends, he is 
an enemy who perverts it from its original purpose, 

9 



and he is the true friend who keeps it within pre- 
scribed metes and bounds, who preserves the original 
intact, who resists and defeats all infractions, and no 
man abstained more carefully than Calhoun from vio- 
lations of the Constitution or was more forward to ar- 
rest them. A change in the Constitution, made irreg- 
ularly, without due authority, is a disruption of the 
original Union, and. strange to say, those who have 
made and who advocate the perversion have arrogated 
the role of defenders and resorted to the old cry of 
" Stop thief ! " to divert attention from their own 
criminality. 

V. 

These preliminary statements enable us to discuss 
more intelligently the proposition that Calhoun, in 
theory of government, in inmost purpose, in depth of 
conviction, in political action, was the truest friend of 
the Union. Webster, his great antagonist, spoke of 
him as "a historical character." connecting himself 
successfully and honorably, for all time, with the rec- 
ords of his country. He came of that sturdy Scotch- 
Irish immigration which settled the Piedmont region 
from Virginia to Georgia — the stock of men who im- 
pressed themselves indelibly and beneficently upon 
American character and institutions. Alexander, 
Jack, Preston. Pickens, Rutledge, Jackson, Polk, 
Houston. Calhoun, the commonwealth builders, were 
possessed of industry, thrift, integrity, courage, con- 
science, obstinacy, adherence to principle, capacity for 
command. With the rugged honesty and fearlessness 
of John Knox, an acutely analytical and metaphysical 
mind, Scotch relish for general principles and abstract 
truths, Calhoun pursued truth with indomitable will 
and unswerving devotion, and his speeches were ignited 
logic, the embodiments of his own moral and mental 
characteristics. His great opponent said there was 
no way of coping with him except by denying his 
premises. His speeches are such demonstrations that 
Q. E. D. may be written at the end of them. Aris- 

10 



totle's reproach of Plato was "This is to talk poetic 
metaphor.'' I recall only one line of poetical quotation 
in all his productions, "Truth crushed to earth will 
rise again." Adopting after intense study the exijosi- 
tion of the Constitution and the theory of our govern- 
ment, set forth in the Virginia resolutions and the 
luminous report thereon, and in the Kentucky resolu- 
tions, he was permeated by these principles, and they 
illustrate his whole political life from his vice presi- 
dency until his death. His volume on the Govern- 
ment and Constitution of the United States is seldom 
read by his defamers, but it places him as a publicist 
on a plane with Aristotle.* 

Seeing Calhoun in the light of what has been said, 
one cannot fail to accept the statement that he was 
preeminently, almost idolatrously, a friend of the 
Union of the Constitution, not of a Union of sub- 
ordinate colonies, of dependent provinces, of a vast 
multitude of individuals, but of coequal states. Xo 
heart beat more warmly, no one was readier to make 
sacrifices for the Union, whose element was the Con- 
stitution, no statesman more clearly, more vividly, 
appreciated its beauty, its value, its glory. Entering 
public life in early manhood, the one pole star by 
which his path was guided, which in its pervasive 
influence thrilled him in every tiber of his being, was 
the honor of the whole country. The war of 1812 was 
the second war of independence. When free for the 
moment from Napoleon, England turned her whole 
power upon us. Through press, pulpit and legislation, 
New England opposed the war, assailed the credit of 
the government, embarrassed all financial operations, 
gave aid and comfort to the enemy and conspired to 
withdraw from the Union. Calhoun, with the bold- 
ness of the bravest and the sagacity of the wisest, 

♦CarJylo had small lovo for Gladstone and criticised with 
severity the great Liberal leader. A friend, in gentle 
protest, ventured to ask C'arlyle if he did not remember 
a concurrence of ideas on a certain jjoint. " Remember I " 
said Carlyle with disgust, "Do you think I ever read liis 
speeches? I have never read a word of them!" — July 
Review of Reviews, p. 63. 

11 



championed resistance, and saw our country glorious 
in victory by sea and by land — symbols and prophecy 
of what sailors and soldiers are now achieving, to the 
joy of all hearts, over a people whose national history, 
in both hemispheres, has been marked by atrocious 
slaughterings of men and women because they 
demanded civil and religious freedom. The national 
exigency diverted the attention of Congress from 
our internal to our external relations, and on such 
occasions the powers of government are strained. 
Under jiressure of the safety of the republic, or of 
supposed military necessity, there is an irresistible 
tendency to loose views of interpretation and to 
dangerous expedients. It is foreign to my purpose to 
speak of Calhoun's views on various questions, or to 
try to vindicate his consistency — no mortal is wise at 
all hours — but I may say, from the beginning to the 
end of his life, his predominant object was to restore 
our government to its original jjurity and to keep it 
within the simple duties indicated by the Constitution. 
He once said "for many a long year I have aspired to 
do my duty, under all circumstances, in every trial, 
irrespective of parties, and without regard to friend- 
ships or enmities, but simply in reference to the pros- 
perity of the country." Infractions of the Constitu- 
tion he dreaded, deplored, as a chivalrous man a stain 
upon his honor. Heroically, without thought of self, 
he flung himself at all times betwixt the object of his 
worship and the mailed, the traitorous, hand that 
would strike it down. This appreciation and love 
made him shut his eyes to the rewards and honors 
ambition held before him, his ears to the blandish- 
ments and siren songs of power, and, standing on the 
threshold of the highest position in the government, 
he resolutely cut loose from the party which honored 
and cherished him as a prince and a leader, and began 
a career, paved with thorns and sharp stones, reject- 
ting ease and place, and entering upon an embittered 
warfare in which prejudice, interest and sectionalism, 
were arrayed against him. His struggle was to 

12 



reinstate the Constitution in its original supremacy 
over the Congress and the executive. He made a broad 
and just distinction between a legislature, enacting 
statutes, and a convention, the embodied sovereignty 
of the people, ordaining an organic law. He distin- 
guished sharply between a territory and a state, 
between "inhabitants"' and "people," between a half- 
naturalized alien and a complete American citizen, 
the highest title of a free man. With intellectual 
contempt and superlative scorn, he rejected the mod- 
ern notion that our governments, state or federal, are 
a democracy, and he held that action by a population 
en masse, or by Congress outside, without, contrary to, 
prescribed forms and explicit grants, was usurpation, 
indistinguishable from mobocracy and despotism. 

As a result of the discrimination of the Missouri 
Compromise, immigration, slaverj', unequal expendi- 
ture for the benefit of a favored section of the country, 
the concentration of exchanges through the control of 
the government funds at the North, thus making it the 
center and heart of the financial system of the Union, 
the North acquired a dominant population and a pre- 
ponderance of political power in the Federal legisla- 
ture. This superiority was exerted, without stint or 
conscience, in a selfish use over the taxing power 
and the national expenditures. The tariff acts of 1818 
and 182i were enacted to encourage and protect manu- 
factures, while millions of the public treasure were 
disproportionately expended for improvements. The 
tariff of 1832 deserves the ignominy of "the bill of 
abominations," for so exorbitant were its exactions 
that out of an import of 604,000,000, it carried S32,000, 
000 into the treasury. It now became manifest that 
the powers of the government could bo so perverted 
by usurpation aud loose construction of the Constitu- 
tion as to oppress and impoverish one section for the 
benefit of another. Here were developed the province 
and duty of the statesman, regardless of personal 
results, to point out the errors of the government, the 
false constructions of the Constitution, the perils to 

13 



the Union, and to propose the best remedies of which 
the system was capable. This had been Calhoun's 
life-long object ; for this he lived and labored, and to 
this, his last thoughts and dying energies were con- 
secrated.* Protests against the tariff were made in all 
parts of the South. Mr. Calhoun said "He who earns 
the money, who digs it from the earth with the sweat 
of his brow, has a just title to it against the universe. 
No one has a right to touch it without his consent, 
except his government, and the latter only to the 
extent of its legitimate wants ; to take more is 
robbery." In December 1828, the legislature of South 
Carolina adopted an exposition, drawn by Calhoun, in 
which the whole subject of the tariff and the relations 
of the state and general government was elaborately 
discussed with consummate ability. The paper' laid 
bare the oppressiveness and unconstitutionality of the 
legislation of Congress, the danger to constitutional 
liberty and free institutions, and suggested, as the 
ultimate remedy, the right of the state, in the last 
resort, to interpose her veto or nullification against 
the execution of the law within her limits. 

It was not the judgment of Calhoun that the remedy 
should be immediately applied, as he preferred to wait 
and see if, through General Jackson's great influence, 
the protective system and its most objectionable cog- 
nate measures might not be broken up. The fii"st 
message removed every doubt of the President's policy 
and showed that, under malign influences, he meant 
to throw the weight of his administration against 
relief from mischievous legislation and the consequent 
perils to the constitutional Union. Consequently, a 
convention was called in Carolina, and the acts of 1828 
and 1832, imposing duties, were solemnly declared void 
and of no effect in the state. Congress soon passed the 
Force Bill, an ineffaceable record of the subserviency 
of the American Congress, which, in turn, was immedi- 



* His dying aspiration, "O for one hour in the senate !" was 
that that liour might be devoted to the preservation of the 
Union of the fathers. 

14 



ately uullitied by the gallant state. In the meantime, a 
compromise bill, proposed by Clay, was passed by Con- 
gress and accepted by Calhoun and his colleagues. 
Single-handed, the state ot Marion and Pickens, Rut- 
ledge and Pinckney, Lowndes and Cheves, Hayne and 
Calhoun, extorted from an arrogant majority all which 
she demanded. A slanderous falsification alleges that 
Calhoun yielded because Jackson threatened to hang 
him. Let Professor von Hoist, by no means a partial 
judge of Calhoun, answer : "If either had a right to 
claim the victory, it was certainly not Jackson and 
the majority in Congress, but Calhoun and South 
Carolina." In 1842, another tariff act was passed, in 
flagrant violation of the Compromise of 1833, for which 
a deceptive justification was prepared by a distribu- 
tion of a portion of the revenue and by most prodigal 
appropriations. A strenuous effort was made to excite 
state interposition a second time, but Calhoun resisted 
because he was so attached to the Union, and was 
averse to putting it to hazard while there existed a 
reasonable hope of redress by other and less drastic 
measures, and because of his hope and expectation, 
fortunately realized, that the approaching presiden- 
tial election would bring into power a more con- 
stitutional party. Closing his masterly speech on 
the tariff in 1842, his clarion voice rang out in cheer- 
ful tones, "The great popular party is already rallied, 
almost en masse, around the banner which is leading 
the party to its final triumph. On that banner is 
inscribed Free Tj-ade; Loio Duties ; No Debt ; Sejiara- 
tionfrom Banks; Economy ; Retrenchment and strict 
adherence to the Constitution.^' 

VI. 

While not strictly necessary for the vindication'of 
my theme, it may not be wholly irrelevant to clear 
nullification from some misapprehension which pre- 
vails as to the basis of such a claim on the part of a 
state, and as to the legitimate and intended effects of 
such a right. In the public mind, in grave treatises, 

15 



in congreBsional speeches, it has been transformed 
into "'a raw head and bloody bones" to frighten chil- 
dren and hysterical voters. Prior to the adoption of 
the Constitution and the consequent formation of the 
Union, citizens were subject to no control but that of 
their states, and could be to no other except by the 
act of the state itself. It was only by the ratification 
of the Constitution by the separate act of the state 
that its citizens became subject, in any manner, to the 
authority of the general government. Without this 
ratification by their own state, the citizen stood, and 
would have continued to stand, in the same relation 
to the Union, as do the subjects of any foreign power. 
Rhode Island was not represented in the Convention 
which framed the constitution, and after the ratifica- 
tion was treated for several years by Congress as a 
foreign state, and duties were imposed upon goods 
imported from Rhode Island into the Union. Ratifi- 
cation bound the state as a community, and it 
rested with a state, as a member of the Union, in her 
sovereign capacity in convention, to determine, as far 
as her citizens were concerned, the extent of the 
obligations she assumed ; and if, in her opinion as a 
sovereign, a law of Congress was unconstitutional, to 
declare it null and void, and that declaration was obli- 
gatory on her citizens. The unconstitutional act is of 
itself void, because beyond the right and power of the 
government to enact, and no argument of expediency 
or necessity can validate. The contention was that 
the state, as related to herself, so far as her own citi- 
zens were concerned, was the judge of her own obli- 
gations, and being the authority which imposed the 
obligations, must determine their extent, and that 
this declaration was binding on the citizens whoowed 
to her paramount allegiance. In itself, nullification 
is not a withdrawal from the Union ; it is not 
to be in and out of the Union at the same time. 
That is a species of ad caj'itandujyi viilgns misrepre- 
sentation. A state is, at all times, so long as its proper 
position is maintained, both in and out of the Union ; 

16 



in for all constitutional purposes, and out for all 
others ; in to the extent of delegated powers, and out 
to the extent of the reserved, for the states are united 
to the extent of the delegated powers, and separated 
beyond that limit. The boundary betwixt the reserved 
and the delegated powers marks the limits of the 
Union. Nullitieation was a definitive declaration on 
the part of the sovereign state, made in due form, 
that an act of an agent, of the government of the 
compact, transcends the delegated power and is there- 
fore void. The object was to confine Congress within 
the limits of granted power by arresting the acts 
transcending authority, not with the view of resum- 
ing the delegated power, of dissolving the Union, but 
to prevent the reserved powers from being assumed, 
and thus to preserve the Union by comjjelling the 
fulfillment of the object for which the trust was 
created. Nullification is not a daily medicine, but was 
applicable only when the trust powers had been 
injuriously exceeded. It is a motion in arrest of 
judgment, an appeal to the constituent members of 
the government for a reconsideration, a temperate 
preventive of unwise legislation, of dangerous usur- 
pation of power, of fatal encroachments on the 
Constitution. It calls for a pause, takes a reckon- 
ing, inquires where we are. Instead of resisting legiti- 
mate authority, or diminishing the rightful power of 
theUnion, the object is to preserve them and thereby 
the Union itself. Need it be argued before intelligent 
people that the Union, as a political entity, may be 
effectually destroyed by usurijation,by enlargement of 
powers, as by diminishing them ; by consolidation, by 
centralization, as by absolving the allegiance of the citi- 
zens of a creating state, unless we mean by Union a 
mere concretion of inorganic elements, a government, 
independent, self-existing, unrelated to the states or 
the Constitution. In defending reserved powersagainst 
encroachments, nullification is not destructive, but 
conservative and preservative. The general recogni- 
tion of the right of state interposition would, in a 

17 



great measure, if not altogether, supersede the neces- 
sity of its exercise, by impressing on parties and 
public officers and the movements of the government 
that moderation and justice so essential fo harmony 
and peace in a country of such vast extent and diver- 
sity of interests as ours. If Congress be the supreme 
and final judge of the extent of powers reserved and 
delegated, then its discretion is the law and the Con- 
stitution is abrogated ; the whole order of the Federal 
system is reversed and the General Government is the 
master and proprietor of the states. There is no 
better definition of despotism than a government of 
absolute, irresponsible majority, unchecked and un- 
restrained except by its own will. "It is idle, worse 
than idle," said the great Carolinian, "to attempt to 
distinguish, practically, between a government of un- 
limited powers and one professedly limited, but with 
an unlimited right to determine the extent of its 
powers." And hence, one rarely hears of a majority 
in Congress troubling itself about granted or for- 
bidden powers. Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione 
voluntas. 

The effect of state interposition should be to cause 
the gorernment at Washington to abandon, for the 
time being, the disputed power, or to apply to the 
states themselves, the source of all political authority, 
for an additional grant. This would not be a revolu- 
tionary or forcible, but a peaceful expedient, admirably 
adapted to prevent disorders and to preserve and 
conserve that most remarkable feature of concurring 
majorities. Our system comprehends two distinct 
governments, the general and state, which, projierly 
understood, constitute but one, the former represent- 
ing the joint authority of the states in their confederate 
capacity, and the latter, that of each state separately. 
Powers are divided, all must concede, between the 
delegated and the reseryed, the general and the state 
governments, and the jjowers reserved are reserved to 
the states respectively. "It will be difficult to imagine 
a system more happily constituted than our Federal 

18 



Republic — a system of state and general governments, 
so blended as to constitute one sublime whole ; the 
latter, haying charge of interests common to all, and 
the former, those local and peculiar to each state. 
With such a system, let the Federal Government be 
confined rigidly to the few groat oVijecte for which it 
was instituted, leaving the states to contend in gen- 
erous rivalry to develop, by the arts of peace, their 
respective resources ; and a scene of prosperity and 
happiness would follow heretofore unequaled on 
the globe."' 

VII. 

Civil service reform has been, of late years, so much 
discussed, eliciting earnest advocacy and bitter hos- 
tility, it seems to be forgotten that in the senate, in 
182G, 1835 and 1843, executive patronage was made 
the subject of exhaustive reports and spirited de- 
bates. In 1835, Calhoun submitted a report in which 
may be found a full and conclusive discussion of the 
evils and dangers of the spoils system and of " the 
cohesive power of public plunder." When offices, 
instead of being considered as public trusts to be con- 
ferred on the deserving, are regarded as the spoils 
of victory to be bestowed as rewards for partisan 
services, without respect to merit ; when it comes to 
be understood that all, who hold office, hold by tenure 
of partisan zeal and partisan service, it is easy to 
see that the certain, direct and inevitable tendency of 
such a state of things is to convert the entire body of 
those in office into corrupt and supple instruments 
of power, and to raise up a host of hungry, greedy 
and subservient partisans — " salaried dependents." as 
Lucian calls them — ready for every service, however 
base and corrupt. "Were a premium offered for the 
best means of extending to the utmost the power of 
patronage, to destroy the love of country and to sub- 
stitute a spirit of subserviency and man-worship ; to 
encourage vice and discourage virtue ; and in a word 
to prepare for the subversion of liberty and the estab- 

19 



lishment of despotism, no scheme more perfect could 
be devised." Bringing a dangerous mass of private 
and personal interests into operation in all public 
elections and public questions, making the power and 
influence of Federal patronage an overmatch for the 
power and influence of state patronage, have had 
painful and menacing illustration in these latter days. 

VIII. 

After his efforts as Secretary of State, resulting 
subsequently and chiefly through his energetic and 
far-seeing statesmanship in the annexation of Texas 
and the defeat of the hostile machinations of Great 
Britain, and declining the mission to England offered 
by President Polk, Calhoun retired to private life, but 
the unfortunate pledge in the party platform to claim 
the whole territory of Oregon, then in dispute be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States, caused a 
most irritating controversy, and war seemed inevita- 
ble. The country became alarmed, and the mer- 
chants in our great cities sent a message to the 
retired statesman begging him to return to the coun- 
cils of the nation. In 1842, with unrivaled ability, he 
had sustained the Ashburton Treaty, which removed 
the causes of disagreement between the two contract- 
ing parties with reference to the northeastern bound- 
ary. The eyes of all interests and parties were now 
turned to the one man, hitherto eqvial to every emer- 
gency, as being competent to avert this imminent 
danger. He could not resist such appeals, threw him- 
self into the breach, rallied the i)atriotism and good 
sense of the country, and forced the reopening of 
negotiations which soon adjusted the trouble to the 
satisfaction of both nations. To him was justly ac- 
credited the proud distinction and honor of saving us 
from a war with our best friend, about a matter so 
trivial that not one in thousands of ovu' citizens could 
now state intelligently the cause of the mad agita- 
tion. Perhaps no more timely and substantial service 

20 



was ever rendered to our country. It is well to recall 
these adjustments and for^^et historic grievances and 
disputes and old prejudices, to reunite the sacred and 
natural ties of kinship, to strengthen the bonds of 
interest and alliance with a people between whom 
and ourselves there is a community of race, of lan- 
guage, of law, of literature, of religion, of ideals, of free 
institutions, of presumptions on the side of freedom, 
of responsibility for a true and ennobling civilization. 

" O Englishmen — in liopo and creed, 

In blood and tongue our brothers ! 
We, too, are heirs oT Kunuymedo; 
And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed 

Are not alone our mother's." 

With sublime courage he sought also to pre- 
vent an invasion of Mexico by our army, because he 
saw, with prophetic vision, that all hope of reforming 
the government and preserving the Constitution and 
Union of delegated powers would be blighted by the 
results of war with a weak neighbor and the conse- 
quent acquisition of foreign territory, which would 
inevitably lead to an embittered sectional struggle, 
imperiling the Union. Few occasions in his check- 
ered career so filled him with terror, with apprehen- 
sions for the safety of the Union, and for the equality 
of the states as members of the great republic. 

An original letter from Mr. Calhoun, written on the 
first of August, 1844, makes clear his opinions. "The 
whole tenor of my long public life contradicts the 
charge of being unfriendly to the Union, and every 
friend and acquaintance I have know it to be false. 
My life has been devoted to the service of the Union, 
and the constant and highest object of my ambition 
has been to preserve and perpetuate it, with our free, 
popular, federal system of government."' 

John Randolph Tucker of Virginia related that at 
a dinner party in Washington, Bancroft stated in con- 
versation that Calhoun was the original secessionist 
and responsible for the Civil War. To this statement 
Tucker took exception and said that in the month of 

21 



Calhoun's death he was invited to go and see the great 
statesman. To an inquiry whether anything could be 
done to save the Union, and whether the Missouri Com- 
promise could not save it. Calhoun replied, "With my 
constitutional objections I could not vote for it, but I 
would acquiesce in it to save the Union." He was 
again asked what he saw in the future of the country, 
and his reply was. "Dark forebodings, and I should 
die happy if I could see the Union preserved." Ban- 
croft inquired if Tucker had heard this reply of 
Calhoun, to which Tucker answered, yes, and then 
Bancroft stated. " I will never again repeat the charge 
I made against Mr. Calhoun here tonight."' 

It may be safely asserted that in the freedom of 
private intercourse, in his most confidential communi- 
cations, in his public utterances, he was never known 
to express one opinion hostile to the Union. 

IX. 

As confuting the unquestionable historical state- 
ments and logical conclusions, it is affirmed that 
the war between the states made a different govern- 
ment, settling disputed questions adversely to the 
contention of the Southern states. In 1861, Congress 
declared that the war was to "preserve the Union 
with all the dignity, equality and rights of the several 
states unimpaired.'' War or force settles nothing /» 
foro conscientiae, nothing of historic or scientific 
truth. The war between the states showed that 
the North and the South could furnish soldiers 
equal to any in the world for patience, endurance, 
patriotism, courage and sacrifices, and officers, in- 
cluding Grant and Lee, Sherman and Johnstons. 
Sheridan and Stuart, Thomas and Jackson, Far- 
ragut and Semmes, inferior to none who ever 
drew sword. Whatever judgment may finally pre- 
vail as to the expediency of the present war, the 
need of its initiation, undertaken to check the dis- 
orders and relieve the oppressions in Cuba, it has 

2'i 



developed a high citizenship, obscured otfensive lines 
and Bentiments of sectionalism, called out courageous 
exhibitions of patriotic purposes, illumined biography 
with valorous deeds, and cemented the bonds of 
national life. No one who knows Spain, proud, poor, 
self-satistied, inert, decadent, dwelling contentedly in 
the past, can doubt the issue of her conflict with the 
tremendous resources of the United States in wealth, 
in intellect, quick adaptedness to emergencies, in com- 
pact patriotism of a united people, and in such illus- 
trations of magnihcent courage as displayed by the 
Vermonter and the Alabamian — by Dewey and 
Hobson. But what political questions were settled by 
the terrible contiict of 1861-1865? That is ascer- 
tainable only by reference to Amendments XIII, 
XIV and XV. They nationalized the government and 
broadened citizenship beyond what the fathers 
ever dreamed of. They emancipated the slaves and 
placed them upon equality of citizenship with the 
white people, compelled the seceding states to repudi- 
ate all obligations growing out of conflict with the 
United States, and eliminated secession as a state 
right or remedy by creating national citizenship, thus 
transferring paramount allegiance from the state to 
the general government. As a legitimate consequence, 
the right of state interposition to arrest usurpation by 
the Federal Government, whether by nullification or 
secession, has gone forever, and all granted powers are 
irrevocable by the states, and the general government 
has become practically the final judge of the measure 
and extent of the powers conferred upon it. Prior to 
the post-bellum amendments, the will of the states 
had not been formulated upon the distinct subject of 
national sovereignty. To the extent of these changes, 
the rights of states were impaired. Outside these 
amendments, "which make no change in the organic 
distribution of powers," the Constitution and the 
resulting Union, and the reserved powers of the states, 
and the delegated authority of the Federal Govern- 
ment, remain as and what they were in 1860. The 

23 



states, when thej- accepted the Constitution, agreed 
to a method of amendment, and to limitations upon 
the amendments. Having imposed upon themselves a 
form of government, it can be changed legitimately 
and authoritatively only in a way provided in the pact. 
Lincoln said, " Whenever they shall grow weary of the 
existing government, they have the constitutional right 
to amend it, or the revolutionary right to overthrow 
it." The power to amend is given to certain determinate 
bodies, and in these bodies quoad hoc rests the sover- 
eignty. In the United States, the ultimate sovereign, 
the constitution-making power, is a " collegiate sov- 
ereign," made up of two-thirds of the two Houses of 
Congress and three-fourths of the legislatures or con- 
ventions. It is absurd to look elsewhere for the source 
of constitutional law. No provision has been made for 
changing our Constitution different from what is con- 
tained in Article V, a peculiarly American provision 
adopted by the fathers to meet future requirements. 
This restriction is not adverse to progress, to wise 
adaptations to environments, does not mean that our 
country and institutions are to be hindered by swad- 
dling clothes of the last century. A Chicago paper 
speaks of larger population, of progress in invention, 
machinery, resources, and that we must be wise ac- 
cording to the exigencies and interests of the hour. 
So be it. Amendments are desirable, and over 1800 
have been proposed in Congress. Changes should 
occur. The only question is how, by what process ? 
By safe evolution, by the healthy and wise means of 
progress provided presciently in the Constitution, or 
by revolution, Ijy usurpation, by the desire for aggran- 
dizement on the part of the •' fierce democratie." Let 
it be insciribed over doors of Congress and courts 
and the executive mansion that in America precedents 
do not make constitutions, and that a constitution 
violated is not a constitution abolished. President 
J. Q. Adams closes his defense of himself in the matter 
of the negotiation of Ghent by giving "solemn warn- 
ing to the statesmen of the Union, in their conflict 

24 



with foreign powers through ail future time, never to 
consider any of the liberties of the nation as abrogated 
by a war, or capable of being extinguished by any 
other agency than our own express renunciation." 

X. 

Since the war some new theories have been 
promulgated as to changes in the character and 
authority of the Federal Government. The doctrine 
of national political growth is applied, and a govern- 
ment, alterable only by prescribed methods, becomes 
flexible and elastic, so as to be molded by circum- 
stances, by fluctuating public opinion, or supposed 
public interests. One law professor coolly sets aside 
the Tenth Amendment. Another defines state rights 
and powers such only as were granted or recognized 
by the Constitution. Another measures constitu- 
tional law, not by texts, but hy f aits aocomplis and 
tests constitutional changes by two queries ; were 
they in accordance with the standard of the times, 
have they lasted ? These theories are revolutionary 
and efface the well-established distinction between 
a constitution and an ordinary statute. Nothing 
can be conceived more antipodal to the true end of 
our Federal, Constitutional, representative Republic. 
The Constitution becomes superfluous. Restraints 
and reservations are swept into desuetude, not innoc- 
uous. Oaths have no binding force. Whim, caprice, 
the mutable breath of the multitude, whatever fanat- 
icism or hatred, or the vulgar enticements of jingoism 
or interest may suggest, whether in violation of treaty, 
despoiling foreign nations, creating fiat money, naviga- 
tion laws, codfish bounties, tariff robberies, destruc- 
tion of state autonomy, any injustice or outrage which 
ambition or greed or demagogism may make to appear 
popular, or secure a majority in Congress, super- 
sedes the fundamental law. The Constitution is wiped 
out. Grants have no significance. Limitations are 
impotent. Instead of a stable, solemn, permanent, 
national will, we have hardly a rope of sand, and the 



Constitution, as Jefferson feared, becomes " waste 
paper by construction," If our fathers made such a 
government, instead of deserving encomiums for wis- 
dom and sagacity as statesmen and publicists, they 
were the veriest simpletons. 

XI. 

In the reprobation of secession and the " rebel- 
lion" and the misapprehension of what chants have 
been wrought, there is danger of fatal reaction from 
the true principles of the government to an approval 
of centralization which Gladstone said has been the 
curse of Ireland. Slavery and secession being elimi- 
nated from all future controversy, some matters can 
be looked at from a broad, patriotic view, without the 
disturbing influence of sectionalism. Centripetalism, 
drawing into the hands of the government a large part 
of the direct powers of control and administration, 
aggregation of authority in the central head, may 
have stimulated national pride and vanity and a 
coarse militarism, but it has not increased national 
happiness and contentment, nor promoted the general 
welfare. It has originated or intensified problems, 
difficult and apparently insoluble, arrayed capital 
against labor, the classes against the masses, stimu- 
lated "vast plutocratic combinations of incorporated 
wealth," excited foreign ill-will, and created perils 
which menace personal freedom, individual liberty 
and state autonomy. From frugality and economy 
our government has lapsed into "Billion Congresses." 
the most extravagant expenditures of the people's 
money, and a disposition, on the part of the states, as 
well as of persons, to look to a paternal government 
tor protection and support. It was a cardinal maxim 
of Calhoun to keep the government poor, for the 
most fatal vices have come from a plethoric treasury. 
As Burke said in his attack on Lord North, Mag- 
num vectignl est parsimonia. Auxiliary to this 
wasteful use of public money, a consequence and 
a cause of it, is the criminal use of money in 

26 



nominating conventions and in preBidential and 
congressional elections, in paying election expenses 
and delivering votes to corporations. Enlarged 
executive patronage has been fastened upon the 
country, and unless checked and regulated the debase- 
ment and corruption of the community will proceed 
beyond cure. Excessive governmental intervention has 
become the bane of our system, and Ijounties, sub- 
sidies, pensions, rings, trusts, partnership in pritate 
business, break up old party lines and bring into pas- 
sionate demands the pent up feelings of greed, envy, 
poverty, and distrust. A mysterious power residing 
in the state to make money and to direct profitable 
industries is inculcated by demagogues. State social- 
ism and perversion of public taxation from its true 
function into an engine for the selfish profit of allied 
beneficiaries and combinations have had incalculable 
influence in fostering class legislation, creating 
inequalities of fortune, corrupting public life,* in- 
trenching dishonesty in high places, banishing men of 
independent mind and character from the public 
councils, lowering the tone of national representation, 
blunting public conscience, creating false standards 
in the popular mind, familiarizing it with reliance upon 
state aid and guardianship in private affairs, divorc- 
ing ethics from politics, and placing politics upon the 
low level of a mercenary scramble.! 

Under the infatuating influence of centralized pow- 
er, Washington's advice against entangling alliance 
with foreign powers is disregarded, and interference 
with treaties and in foreign disputes finds advocacy in 
the press, the house, and the senate. A vicarious 
philanthropy is promoted and loud demands are made 
to take under our sheltering wings, as the custodians 
of the nations of the world, all who are suffer- 



* Senator Toller said publicly that the Sherman Silver Pur- 
chase .Vet of July 14, 1890, was the result of a concession to, 
an agreement with, certain Silver Senators as an induce- 
ment to them to support tlie McKinley tariff. 

tSee Bayard's Edinburgh Speech in 1895, placed by the House 
of Representatives in the Index Expurgatorius. 

27 



ing from destitution, or persecution, or misgovern- 
ment. Jingoism is popular, and the propagandism of 
ideas, such as disgraced the French Revolution in 
1792-3, becomes the quintessence of Americanism. As 
corrective of such fallacies, let us hear what the 
fathers said. Jefferson, in that matchless enumera- 
tion of the true principles of our government, in his 
Inaugural, emphasized "the supjiort of the state gov- 
ernments in all their rights ; the preservation of the 
general government in its whole constitutional vigor, 
as the sheet anchor of peace at home and safety 
abroad.'" Madison declared the purposes of the gov- 
ernment to be "to support the Constitution, which is 
the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as 
in its authorities ; to respect the rights and authori- 
ties reserved to the states." It has been announced 
ex cathedra to be " the divine purpose that America 
should depart from her isolated position, and take her 
place among the foremost nations of the earth." 
Others, not assuming to speak as " the oracles of 
God," say, "We are going on to the Sandwich Islands 
and as much further as duty and destiny call." 
Whether we can adjust our constitutional, representa- 
tive, federal system to the outlying, imperial provinces 
of Cuba, Poi'to Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine 
Islands, and abandon our republican simplicity, a 
wiser man than I must decide. Unlike the French, 
Spanish, and other peoples, we may have the Roman 
and the English aptitude for colonization, but, cer- 
tainly, colonial aggrandizement upsets, reverses, 
all the principles and traditions of the fathers. 
However that may be, manifest destiny, lust of 
territorial aggrandizement, or the irresistible logic of 
events is driving us from our historic policy of isola- 
tion, demanding, for the settlement of the political, 
ethical, and international questions that will grow 
out of these new complications, these enlarged respon- 
sibilities, this revolution in theory and policy of govern- 
ment, the wisest and most cultured statesmen. Our 
ancestors, with almost superhuman sagacity, devised a 

28 



scheme of governments, which has adjusted itself to 
every past expansion of territorial area, and it is beyond 
question that this system, carried out as originally 
devised, could cover North America, in impartial vigor, 
with justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. Consoli- 
dation, centralization, begets necessarily assumption 
of power, tyrannous and selfish interference with 
personal and local rights, and licenses hurtful 
appetites and wickedest passions. Holding the gen- 
eral government in legitimate bounds, allowing home 
rule, the watchfulness of self-management, and the 
discipline of local self-government, enlarges without 
weakening, and secures in just measure, the rights 
and liberties, the prosperity and happiness, which 
come from a well-ordered and wisely restrained 
government. It is the '' E Pluribus Unum," the unity 
and harmony and strength of the federative whole. 

The Declaration of Independence is the magna 
charta of human liberty, salutary alike for colonies 
and the mother country, unfolding, almost for the 
first time, in the history of the race, the possibilities 
of the development and enjoyment of the powers with 
which man has been endowed by a beneficent Creator. 
That governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed, undermines all kingly and 
priestly absolutism, is the death-knell of all political 
and ecclesiastical tyranny and the assertion of liberty 
as the inalienable birthright of man. Our correlated 
federal and state governments, with freedom of 
religion, is America's contribution to the science of 
politics. "Distinct as the billows and one as the sea," 
is a misleading illustration of the true character of 
the system. The two governments, interdependent, 
each with distinct functions, move in their prescribed 
orbits, obedient to the laws of justice and right, and 
dispense order, equality, and freedom, without interfer- 
ence with the duty and prerogative of the other, and 
with the pre-adjusted harmony of the spheres. This 
blending of federative supremacy for national and for- 
eign purposes, and of state sovereignty, home rule, for 

29 



constitution making and for local and personal matters, 
is the highest attainment of political wisdom, the most 
wonderful achievement ever devised by the brain and 
purpose of man. Let us, on this inspiring day, faith- 
fully guard this American idea of free, representative, 
responsible government, and on some future Fourth of 
July, if not over " the federation of the world,'' at 
least from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Arctic 
to the Isthmus, inclusive, perhaps, of some adjacent 
islands, when cured of heterogeneous and unassimila- 
tive people, we may see "Old Glory" floating in the 
glad sunlight of liberty, with increasing stars and in 
ever brightening beauty. 



30 



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